Apple (AAPL) iOS 7 battery drain: How to fix it

An Apple Inc. iPhone 5S sits on display at Apple Store in Ginza district on September 20, 2013 in Tokyo, Japan.

(Photo by Ken Ishii/Getty Images)

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Many iPhone and iPad owners around the world have been reporting problems with Apple's updated operating system iOS 7.

Some say it locked up their phone while downloading. Others were able to get it, but are now having new problems.

Users wonder if they should have upgraded

IOS 7 is sleek, clean, and fast. It makes even an older iPhone 4 look like the new 5S or 5C.

But a number of users wish they had never made the upgrade.

"I did the upgrade Wednesday evening, and Thursday I noticed my battery life had significantly decreased," engineer Patrick Rowe said.

Rowe was disappointed to discover that his one year old iPhone 5 was running down its battery almost twice as fast as normal, with the new IOS 7 upgrade.

So he went online and found several blogs reporting battery drain issues on iPhones and iPads. They say the problems appear worse with the iPhone 5, surprisingly.

What you can do

Among the suggestions for how to fix the battery drain:

- Turn off the 3-D home screen wallpaper that is standard with the new IOS.

- Disable "Background App Refresh,"which automatically updates and refreshes apps even when you are not using them.

"I went in and shut down some of my notifications. I went in and closed out a lot of apps I wasn't going to use," Rowe said.

That helped a bit. But he read on to find other things he could do.

Other blog suggestions:

- Turn off "Air Drop," which looks for iPhones nearby.

- Turn off WiFi searching.

- Dim the screen. the age-old solution to battery life issues.

"It helped a little bit, probably increased it by 10 percent, but I'm still just 70 percent of what I had," Rowe said, who is hoping for an official fix from Apple soon. Apple had similar problems with IOS 5, and released a patch a month later.

As for holding off, or removing the upgrade, you really can't do that: if you stick with IOS 6, you will start having app problems soon.

As always, don't waste your money.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook says consumer demand for new iPhones has been "staggering" and "hard to comprehend." That helped the company report record-smashing earnings for its latest quarter and primed its stock for a rally Wednesday.